


Trampoline

by Santaanawinds



Category: fun. (Band)
Genre: M/M, Post-Break Up, Secret Relationship, past relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28468722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Santaanawinds/pseuds/Santaanawinds
Summary: Jack was Nate's trampoline. Now he's not. Nate writes a song.Based on Lady A's 'We Owned the Night'Inspired by fun.'s cover on SiriusXm
Relationships: Jack Antonoff/Nate Ruess
Kudos: 1





	1. We Owned the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is fiction, thus the name 'fan fiction'.  
> All rights for 'We Owned the Night' reserved by Lady A.  
> I take no credit.

Tell me have you ever wanted  
Someone so much it hurts?

Nate has. Ever since the day he met him. He met their van in the parking lot at some venue.  
'Nate, this is Steel Train. This is Danny, this is Jack, this is...' the other names faded as Jack's image burned itself into Nate's mind. This scruffy, hyper little shit that never slows down and talks to fast and...it's love at first sight. One day, he'll write about him on his blog: "i fell in love with the boy who has a real life romance with a train...'

Your lips keep trying to speak  
But you just can't find the words

He doesn't know how to tell him this isn't working, but he wants it to. He'll do anything to make this what it's supposed to be. Anything to make Jack stay. But of course, if he isn't singing, and he isn't writing, words more than fail him. Nothing comes to mind. 

Well I had this dream once;  
I held it in my head

Someday when the world was ready for them, they'd settle down somewhere nice, run a studio, have a couple of kids. A mini him, a mini Jack, it didn't matter. So long as they were together, and they had kids, their family would be perfect. 

She was the purest beauty  
But not the common kind  
She had a way about her  
That made you feel alive

She. She. Her. Nate makes all these references to women when he writes. But half of all the songs he writes...they're about him. About Jack. About the boy who has a romance with a train. But the world wasn't ready for them, so he sings about Jack's sister, and the people who need to buy it, buy it. They don't know about himandJack and they don't need to. Everyone who matters, knows. 

Rachel, bless her, has hid every serious relationship she's had for years to play beard for Nate and Jack. She's so close with her brother that no one questions the three of them going out together, eating dinner together, the three of them taking turns to cut in on each other and dance at all the parties tour can throw at you. 

For every 'she' and every 'her', and every pretty girl on a Saturday night, every 'we', 'you', and 'I', Jack knew those words were for him. For every 'walking the dog' or 'barlights', there was an 'I wanna be the one', and that made it alright. One day, it'll be 'Why am I the One?', and it'll be less alright. Because even Nate's lovelorn tunes for exes could never truly be for him. They were always for Rachel. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel. Even now they're over, Nate pretends like it never happened. 

Yeah we owned the night

* * *

You had me dim the lights;  
You danced just like a child  
The wine spilled on your dress  
And all you did was smile  
Yeah, it was perfect  
I hold it in my mind

The lights were low in Nate's apartment, a record turning in the player. He poured them both a drink. Something cheap and red, but it didn't matter. Nothing would have made this night less perfect, just him and Jack, alone after being surrounded by others with no respite for weeks. Finally, a night just for them. They dance, pressed together until it's time to flip the record.  
'Oh, I love this song!' Jack had grinned, twirling and spinning to the tune-feeling the music but way out of time. It was the matter of a couple of bars before his spilled his drink all over his favourite white shirt.  
'Oh no, give it to me, I'll get it out.' Nate offers.  
'No, it's fine.'  
'Really?'  
'It's just a shirt. Who cares, anyway? I'm with my you, a glass of red in my hand and music on the record player, and we can finally be alone.' He smiled that smile that always makes Nate's heart skip a beat. He puts down the glass and puts his arms around Nate. There was nothing special about this night, just that it was theirs. 

Yeah, we owned the night  
When the summer rolls around  
And the sun starts sinking down  
I still remember you  
Oh, I remember you

He lied about writing 'Sight of the Suns'-it wasn't new for that show Lena was working on. It was old, a result of their breakup. 'I used to run, at first sight of the sun, now I lay here waiting for you to wake up'. He used to sneak out in the mornings, let himself in to his and Sam's room and pretend he hadn't been with Jack all night. Then, one day, he just stopped. There are no secrets on tour anyway. Sam graciously allowed him to think he was surprised. 

And I wonder where you are  
Are you looking at those same stars again?

He sings a lot about stars. In fact, one day, Nate will write an album, and every song will talk about celebrities, the sun, actual balls of burning celestial gas. It doesn't matter, it's all stars. He wants to know if Jack's ever quite seen eye to eye. 

Do you remember when  
We woke under a blanket  
All tangled up in skin

Jack was warm with sleep, his skin soft against Nate's, every movement that he made in his sleep warming Nate from the inside out. The window cracked, it was cold. Nate pulled the blanket up, for what he knew would be the last time. Because they hadn't fixed things last night; they'd just agreed that maybe they couldn't be. 

Nate wasn't a 'one for the road' kind of guy-he'd really just wanted to string the night out for as long as possible before goodbye. No jury would convict-he was a man in love. 

Not knowing in that moment  
We'd never speak again?

It wasn't that Nate expected things to be normal when they stopped seeing each other. It's just that, well, he'd hoped when they talked it'd be like when they met-casual, friendly, even. The whole situation was loaded. 

'Hey. I'm Jack.'  
'What? I know-'  
'Nice to meet you.' He wasn't pretending things were cool, he was pretending they never happened. Nate swallowed down the lump in his throat, and extended his hand.  
'I'm Nate.' 

They never did speak again after that night, because they left themselves between those sheets. They became someone else, and it was never the same. 

But it was perfect;  
I never will forget  
When we owned the night

Jack's curly hair in Nate's hand, tickling his throat. Jack's warm breath ghosting his skin, his skin under Nate's fingertips. His heart, beating against Nate's chest. Breathing in unison. There was no where else, heaven or earth, that Nate would rather be. He takes it in, piece by piece, swearing to always remember. 

Nate finishes writing the damn song, takes it to Andrew. Only Andrew.  
'Sing it with me?' Andrews voice is beautiful, he harmonizes nicely with Nate's. But at the end of the song, he says that maybe Nate should sing it alone. It's too personal. 

Nate takes it to a producer friend of his, hands over the cassette tape.  
'What's this?'  
'It's gold.' His friend listens, taps his foot, sways to the music.  
'What do you want me to do with it?'  
'Sell it. Get my name off it and give it to someone else.'  
'Why? Like you said, it's fuckin' gold.'  
'Because I can't. I can't be the one to sing this, and...no one can know I wrote it. Just get rid of it and stick their name on it.'  
'You sure?' Nate nods. 'Ok.' 

He gets a text when the song is re-recorded by some country band. It says that unfortunately, his demo's been destroyed by some studio intern dropping an amp on it. Turns out someone left it on the recording booth floor and there's just no saving it. He's very sorry. He knows it was the only copy. 

When his song comes on the radio, it takes a few bars to recognize it. He can finally stand to hear his own words. 

He and Jack and Andrew cover the song on a radio show. He sees the way Jack looks at his feet as he listens to the words. He can't look at Jack again for the rest of the song, but he's said it now. He's told him the truth and it's all he can do.

Yeah, we owned the night


	2. Sight of the Sun

For once there is nothing up my sleeve  
Just some scars from a life that used to trouble me

Nate glances at his wrist, pulls down his sleeve, doesn't think of her or him or then. He snuggles closer to the warm body next to him, nuzzles the skin across it's back. A sleep-heavy voice mumbles 'you're scratchy'.   
'Sorry.' He pulls away.   
'I didn't say I didn't like it.' A smile spreads across Nate's face and he throws himself on top of the other man, planting a big, obnoxious kiss on the side of his face, complete with sound effects.   
'Sleeping.' The voice complains, turning back over to pull Nate close to his chest, along with a handful of the tangled up covers.   
'Ja-'  
'Shh. Sleep. It's not even noon yet.' That seems a good reason as any to stay in bed. Nate throws a leg across him, "mine", it says. Though to who, neither knows. 

I used to run at first sight of the sun  
Now I lay here waiting for you to wake up

Normally, he's gone by now. As soon as the sun's up, he's out of there, skulking off in the last of the shadows to pretend he isn't who he is, and they aren't doing what they're doing. 

Today though, he's mesmerised by the blissful look on Jack's face as he stretches out, kicking him in the shin, and then turns back into the pillows. They way he reaches out for Nate, who snuck out of bed to go the bathroom a half hour ago and hasn't gone back to sleep yet. Nate puts his hand over Jack's, holds it to his cheek. He wants this moment to last forever. 

The city outside still sounds like it’s on fire  
You put on new sheets, the white flag of a Saturday night  
I know we stayed up talking in circles  
But I like to think the symmetry will keep me close to you

The night they broke up, Jack wanted to go out, and get trashed and party and forget about everything they're not allowed to be. Nate turns on the charm and asks him to beg off and stay in with him instead. Danny's promised to stay out all night, and even if he hadn't, Mike and Marko are a party of their own. Every one on tour had been swept up in it at least a few times. 

He thinks if he can just get Jack to see what's so great about the two of them, alone in their own world, maybe he can keep it spinning for a while longer. 

For everyone, I’m out to prove wrong, you keep the light on  
The only one, you know me better than the truth  
So, despite what I’ve done, I pray to God that we can move on  
'Cause thus far you are the best thing that this life has yet to lose

He cries. He reasons, he begs. All he wants is to be with Jack, but the words just don't come out the way they're supposed to, they don't say what they should. He wishes he had enough time to write that song, so that Jack could hear what he's really trying to say. He prays to whatever god it is exactly that Jack believes in and he only wishes he could to fix this, but apparently, God answers prayers with yes, no, and go fuck yourself. 

Jack's the only thing that matters in Nate's life anymore. He'd give up the music, the tours, the songs, the singing, and the guys, and the van, and Sam. He'd give it all up for Jack, if he thought it'd make the difference. He figures this is 'bargaining', the point of grief at which you admit that you're powerless but hope for a miracle anyway.   
'Just...just tonight. Don't leave me, tonight.' Jack nods and opens his arms and welcomes Nate into his chest, and he's soft and sweet and too damn nice because in the morning, the sun's going to rise, and instead of birds chirping and roosters crowing and whatever else there is in the ass-end of fucking nowhere, USA, there'll be nothing to be heard but the breaking of Nate's heart. 

*** 

So if you're gonna leave, if you're gonna go  
I can’t bare to sleep without you in my arms

The first night after, after. after. Nate never wanted to get used to saying 'after', like Jack was in the past. Like they were in the past. And yet, here he was, in the 'after' of their break up. That first night he didn't knock on Jack's motel door like he wasn't there for him and that and tonight, he didn't sleep a wink. Sam asked. He never asked.   
'You didn't...have somewhere else to be last night?' He draws on his cigarette, and Nate looks at his shoes, kicking the asphalt by the passenger side of the van. The cigarette is offered to Nate, and he takes it, savouring the draw just for something else to do other than speak.   
'It's...that's not a thing anymore.' Sam puts a hand on his shoulder.   
'Sorry.' Nate exhales, hands the cigarette back.   
'No, it's...we agreed.' Sam tries to look, for Nate's sake, like he believed that as he drops the cigarette to the ground and crushes it beneath his flip flop. Nate called shotgun and shoved Marko out of the seat and into the driver's side. Sam climbed in the back, door rattling shut with a final slam. 

I know we got caught up sifting through a crowd of pebbles and lures  
But you must not let them take you  
They don’t know you like I do

Where he had once stood out against the backdrop of, well, everyone else in the world, comparatively, Jack quickly blended back in to his merry band of unshaven, overgrown and undershowered misfits. Just the way Nate had found him. Just the way he found Nate. But do they know how he feels under fingertip, sleep-warm and freshly washed, or mid-summer with a sheen of sweat and greasy, unwashed hair, the remnants of last night still in the air? Do they know the way he blushes when he smiles, but he thinks his hair is long enough to cover it (it's not)? Do they know that he mewls like a cat if you kiss him in the crook of his neck? That carding your fingers through his hair makes him melt into you like a snowman in phoenix? He thinks not. 

***

Do you remember when we stayed up till the sun strikes through the room  
I used to blame it on the Queen’s Walk in down 7th avenue  
It’s been years now since we moved  
I've gotten good at an excuse

Well, Nate had moved. He got a place in New York as an excuse to be near Jack, who still hadn't moved from his parents place in Jersey. He shared an apartment with Rachel, and people continued to buy whatever he sold them. Jack stayed over most nights. If people wanted to believe he was still having sleepovers with his sister into their twenties, then they were going to believe that. He was getting really good at explaining away Jack's prescence in the apartment. Almost too good. 

You know I try not to speak superlatives  
But it’s impossible to you

Prettiest. Handsomest. Kindest. Sweetest. Lovable-est. Best.   
'Lovable-est isn't a word.' Jack laughed as Nate reeled off today's list of his favourite ways to describe Jack.   
'Asshole. Biggest Asshole. There's one.' He lobbed a pillow at him. He caught it with an infuriatingly smug grin. 'It's a word now, ok?' Jack's eyes shone and his smile softened into something more genuine, the side of him that he guards with the Great Wall of Jack whenever anyone not Rachel is around.   
'Ok.' 

The city outside is nothing but a flicker now  
You see our friends to bed, you turn out the lights  
I start to think you’ll make a beautiful mother I,  
I like to think I have everything I want from this life

Jack became the baby sitter for more than a few parties or sessions or nights at the bar. Nate loved to watch him work. One morning as the city grows darker just before it gets lighter, he adds 'World's Best Future Father' to the list. He kind of thinks he could be happy being blasted into space with Jack, or stranded on a deserted island or dumped in the desert or dropped out to sea. Just as long as they're together. Jack is all he needs.


End file.
